The Empire of Russia Part 32

And who was Suwarrow? Behold his portrait. Born in a village of the Ukraine, the boy was sent by his father, an army officer, to the military academy at St. Petersburg, whence he entered the army as a common soldier, and ever after, for more than sixty years, he lived in incessant battles in Sweden, Turkey, Poland. In the storm of Ismael, forty thousand men, women and, children fell in indiscriminate ma.s.sacre at his command. In the campaign which resulted in the part.i.tion of Poland, twenty thousand Poles were cut down by his dragoons. A stranger to fear, grossly illiterate, and with no human sympathies, he appears on the arena but as a thunderbolt of war. Next to the emperor Paul, he was perhaps the most fantastic man on the continent. In a war with the Turks he killed a large number with his own hands, and brought, on his shoulders, a sackful of heads, which he rolled out at the feet of his general. This was the commencement of his reputation.[26] His whole military career was in accordance with this act. He had but one pa.s.sion, love of war. He would often, even in mid-winter, have one or two pailsful of cold water poured upon him, as he rose from his bed, and then, in his shirt, leap upon an unsaddled horse and scour the camp with the speed of the wind.

Sometimes he would appear, in the early morning, at the door of his tent, stark naked, and crow like a c.o.c.k. This was a signal for the tented host to spring to arms. Occasionally he would visit the hospital, pretending that he was a physician, and would prescribe medicine for those whom he thought sick, and scourgings for those whom he imagined to be feigning sickness. Sometimes he would turn all the patients out of the doors, sick and well, saying that it was not permitted for the soldiers of Suwarrow to be sick. He was as merciless to himself as he was to his soldiers. Hunger, cold, fatigue, seemed to him to be pleasures. Hardships which to many would render life a scene of insupportable torture, were to him joys. He usually traveled in a coa.r.s.e cart, which he made his home, sleeping in it at night, with but the slightest protection from the weather. Whenever he lodged in a house, his _aides_ took the precaution to remove the windows from his room, as he would otherwise inevitably smash every gla.s.s.

[Footnote 26: Histoire Philosophique et Politique de Russie. Tome cinquieme, p. 233.]

Notwithstanding this ostentatious display of his hatred of all luxury, he was excessively fond of diamonds and other precious stones. He was also exceedingly superst.i.tious, ever falling upon his knees before whatever priest he might meet, and imploring his benediction. Such men generally feel that the observance of ceremonial rites absolves them from the guilt of social crimes. With these democratic manners Suwarrow utterly detested liberty. The French, as the most liberty-loving people of Europe, he abhorred above all others. He foamed with rage when he spoke of them. In the sham fights with which he frequently exercised the army, when he gave the order to "_charge the miserable French_," every soldier was to make two thrusts of the bayonet in advance, as if twice to pierce the heart of the foe, and a third thrust into the ground, that the man, twice bayoneted, might be pinned in death to the earth. Such was the general whom Paul sent "to destroy the impious government," as he expressed it, "which dominated over France."

With blind confidence Suwarrow marched down upon the plains of Lombardy, dreaming that in those fertile realms nothing awaited him but an easy triumph over those who had been guilty of the crime of abolishing despotism. The French had heard appalling rumors of the prowess and ferocity of these warriors of the North, and awaited the shock with no little solicitude.[27] The two armies met on the banks of the Adda, which flows into the northern part of the Lake of Como.

Suwarrow led sixty thousand Russians and Austrians. The French general, Moreau, to oppose them, had the wreck of an army, consisting of twenty-five thousand men, disheartened by defeat. On the 17th of April, 1799, the first Russian regiment appeared in sight of the bridge of Lecco. The French, indignant at the interference of the Russians in a quarrel with which they had no concern, dashed upon them with their bayonets, and repulsed them with great carnage. But the hosts of Russia and Austria came pouring on in such overwhelming numbers, that Moreau, with his forces reduced to twenty thousand men, was compelled to retreat before an army which could concentrate ninety thousand troops in line of battle. Pressed by the enemy, he retreated through Milan to Turin. Suwarrow tarried in Milan to enjoy a triumph accorded to him by the priests and the n.o.bles, the creatures of Austria.

[Footnote 27: "Suwarrow was a genuine barbarian, fortunately incapable of calculating the employment of his forces, otherwise the republic might perhaps have succ.u.mbed. His army was like himself. It had a bravery that was extraordinary and bordered on fanaticism, but no instruction. It was expert only at the use of the bayonet.

Suwarrow, extremely insolent to the allies, gave Russian officers to the Austrians to teach them the use of the bayonet. Fortunately his brutal energy, after doing a great deal of mischief, had to encounter the energy of skill and calculation, and was foiled by the latter."--_Thiers' History French Revolution_, vol. iv., p. 346.]

Moreau entrenched himself at Alexandria, awaiting the arrival of General Macdonald with reinforcements. Suwarrow approached with an army now exceeding one hundred thousand men. Again Moreau was compelled to retreat, pursued by Suwarrow, and took refuge on the crest of the Apennines, in the vicinity of Genoa. By immense exertions he had a.s.sembled forty thousand men. Suwarrow came thundering upon him with sixty thousand. The French army was formed in a semicircle on the slopes of the Monte Rotundo, about twenty miles north of Genoa. The Austro-Russian army spread over the whole plain below. At five o'clock in the morning of the 15th of August, 1799, the fierce battle of Novi commenced. Suwarrow, a fierce fighter, but totally unacquainted with the science of strategy, in characteristic words gave the order of battle. "Kray," said he, "will attack the left--the Russians the center--Melas the right." To the soldiers he said, "G.o.d wills, the emperor orders, Suwarrow commands, that to-morrow the enemy be conquered." Dressed in his usual costume, in his shirt down to the waist, he led his troops into battle. Enormous slaughter ensued; numbers prevailing against science, and the French, driven out of Italy, took refuge along the ridges of the Apennines.

Suwarrow, satisfied with his dearly-bought victory, for he had lost ten thousand men in the conflict, did not venture to pursue the retiring foe, but with his bleeding and exhausted army fell back to Coni; and thence established garrisons throughout Piedmont and Lombardy. Paul was almost delirious with joy at this great victory. He issued a decree declaring Suwarrow to be the greatest general "of all times, of all peoples and of all quarters of the globe." In his pride he declared that republican France, for the crime of rebelling against legitimate authority, should receive punishment which should warn all nations against following her example. The Russian squadron combined with that of the Turks, formed a junction with the victorious fleet of Nelson, and sailing from the bay of Aboukir, swept the French fleet from the Mediterranean.

The Austrians and Russians, thus victorious, now marched to a.s.sail Ma.s.sena at Zurich on the Rhine, intending there to cross the stream and invade France. For a month, in September and October, 1799, there was a series of incessant battles. But the republican armies were triumphant. The banners of France struggled proudly through many scenes of blood and woe, and the sh.o.r.es of Lake Zurich and the fastnesses of the Alps, were strewed with the dead bodies of the Russians. In fourteen days twenty thousand Russians and six thousand Austrians were slain. Suwarrow, the intrepid barbarian, with but ten thousand men saved from his proud army, retreated overwhelmed with confusion and rage. Republican France was saved. The rage which Suwarrow displayed is represented as truly maniacal. He foamed at the mouth and roared like a bull. As a wounded lion turns upon his pursuers, from time to time he stopped in his retreat, and rushed back upon the foe. He was crushed in body and mind by this defeat. Having wearied himself in denouncing, in unmeasured terms, all his generals and soldiers, he became taciturn and moody. Secluding himself from his fellow-men he courted solitude, and surrendered himself to a fantastic and superst.i.tious devotion. Enveloped in a cloak, and with his eyes fixed upon the ground, he would occasionally pa.s.s through the camp, condescending to notice no one.

Paul had also sent an army into Holland, against France, which had been utterly repulsed by General Brune, with the loss of many slain and taken prisoners. The tidings of these disasters roused, in the bosom of Paul, fury equal to that which Suwarrow had displayed. He bitterly cursed his allies, England and Austria, declaring that they, in the pursuit of their own selfish interests, had abandoned his armies to destruction. Suwarrow, deprived of further command, and overwhelmed with disgrace, retired to one of his rural retreats where he soon died of chagrin.

The Austrian and English emba.s.sadors at the court of St. Petersburg, Paul loaded with reproaches and even with insults. His conduct became so whimsical as to lead many to suppose that he was actually insane.

He had long hated the French republicans, but now, with a new and a fresher fury, he hated the allies. The wrecks of his armies were ordered to return to Russia, and he ceased to take an active part in the prosecution of the war, without however professing, in any way, to withdraw from the coalition. Neither the Austrian nor the English emba.s.sador could obtain an audience with the emperor. He treated them with utter neglect, and, the court following the example of the sovereign, these emba.s.sadors were left in perfect solitude. They could not even secure an audience with any of the ministry.

Paul had been very justly called the Don Quixote of the coalition, and the other powers were now not a little apprehensive of the course he might adopt, for madman as he was, he was the powerful monarch of some forty millions of people. Soon he ordered the Russian fleet, which in cooperation with the squadrons of the allies was blockading Malta, to withdraw from the conflict. Then he recalled his ministers from London and Vienna, declaring that neither England nor Austria was contending for any principle, but that they were fighting merely for their own selfish interests. England had already openly declared her intention of appropriating Malta to herself.

Napoleon had now returned from Egypt and had been invested with the supreme power in France as First Consul. There were many French prisoners in the hands of the allies. France had also ten thousand Russian prisoners. Napoleon proposed an exchange. Both England and Austria refused to exchange French prisoners for Russians.

"What," exclaimed Napoleon, "do you refuse to liberate the Russians, who were your allies, who were fighting in your ranks and under your commanders? Do you refuse to restore to their country those men to whom you are indebted for your victories and conquests in Italy, and who have left in your hands a mult.i.tude of French prisoners whom they have taken? Such injustice excites my indignation."

With characteristic magnanimity he added, "I will restore them to the tzar without exchange. He shall see how I esteem brave men."

These Russian prisoners were a.s.sembled at Aix la Chapelle. They were all furnished with a complete suit of new clothing, in the uniform of their own regiments, and were thoroughly supplied with weapons of the best French manufacture. And thus they were returned to their homes.

Paul was exactly in that mood of mind which best enabled him to appreciate such a deed. He at once abandoned the alliance, and with his own hand wrote to Napoleon as follows:

"Citizen First Consul,--I do not write to you to discuss the rights of men or of citizens. Every country governs itself as it pleases.

Whenever I see, at the head of a nation, a man who knows how to rule and how to fight, my heart is attracted towards him. I write to acquaint you with my dissatisfaction with England, who violates every article of the law of nations and has no guide but her egotism and her interest. I wish to unite with you to put an end to the unjust proceedings of that government."

Friendly relations were immediately established between France and Russia, and they exchanged emba.s.sadors. Paul had conferred an annual pension of two hundred thousand rubles (about $150,000) upon the Count of Provence, subsequently Louis XVIII., and had given him an asylum at Mittau. He now withdrew that pension and protection. He induced the King of Denmark to forbid the English fleet from pa.s.sing the Sound, which led into the Baltic Sea, engaging, should the English attempt to force the pa.s.sage, to send a fleet of twenty-one ships to a.s.sist the Danes. The battle of Hohenlinden and the peace of Luneville detached Austria from the coalition, and England was left to struggle alone against the new opinions in France.

The n.o.bles of Russia, harmonizing with the aristocracy of Europe, were quite dissatisfied with this alliance between Russia and France.

Though the form of the republic was changed to that of the consulate, they saw that the principles of popular liberty remained unchanged in France. The wife of Paul and her children, victims of the inexplicable caprice of the tzar, lived in constant constraint and fear. The empress had three sons--Alexander, Constantine and Nicholas. The heir apparent, Alexander, was watched with the most rigorous scrutiny, and was exposed to a thousand mortifications. The suspicious father became the jailer of his son, examining all his correspondence, and superintending his mode of life in its minutest details. The most whimsical and annoying orders were issued, which rendered life, in the vicinity of the court, almost a burden. The army officers were forbidden to attend evening parties lest they should be too weary for morning parade. Every one who pa.s.sed the imperial palace, even in the most inclement weather, was compelled to go with head uncovered. The enforcement of his arbitrary measures rendered the intervention of the troops often necessary. The palace was so fortified and guarded as to resemble a prison. St. Petersburg, filled with the machinery of war, presented the aspect of a city besieged. Every one was exposed to arrest. No one was sure of pa.s.sing the night in tranquillity, there were so many domiciliary visits; and many persons, silently arrested, disappeared without it ever being known what became of them. Spies moved about everywhere, and their number was infinite. Paul thus enlisted against himself the animosity of all cla.s.ses of his subjects--his own family, foreigners, the court, the n.o.bles and the bourgeois. Such were the influences which originated the conspiracy which resulted in the a.s.sa.s.sination of the tzar.

CHAPTER XXIX.

a.s.sa.s.sINATION OF PAUL AND ACCESSION OF ALEXANDER.

From 1801 to 1807.

a.s.sa.s.sination of Paul I.--Implication of Alexander in the Conspiracy.--Anecdotes.--Accession of Alexander.--The French Revolution.--Alexander Joins Allies Against France.--State of Russia.--Useful Measures of Alexander.--Peace of Amiens.--Renewal of Hostilities.--Battle of Austerlitz.--Magnanimity of Napoleon.--New Coalition.--Ambition of Alexander.--Battles of Jena and Eylau.--Defeat of the Russians.

We have before mentioned that Paul I. had three sons--Alexander, Constantine and Nicholas. The eldest of these, Alexander, was a very promising young man, of popular character, twenty-three years of age.

His father feared his popularity and treated him with the greatest severity, and was now threatening him and his mother with imprisonment. General Pahlen, governor of St. Petersburg, obtained the confidence of the young prince, and urged upon him, as a necessary measure of self-defense, that he should place himself at the head of a conspiracy for the dethronement of his insane father. The sufferings of the young prince were so severe and his perils so great, and the desire for a change so universal throughout the empire, that it was not found difficult to enlist him in the enterprise. Alexander consented to the dethronement of his father, but with the express condition that his life should be spared. He might perhaps have flattered himself with the belief that this could be done; but the conspirators knew full well that the dagger of the a.s.sa.s.sin was the only instrument which could remove Paul from the throne. The conspiracy was very extensive, embracing nearly all the functionaries of the government at St. Petersburg, the entire senate, and the diplomatic corps. All the princ.i.p.al officers of the royal guard, with their colonel at their head, were included in the plot. The hour for the execution of the conspiracy was fixed for the night of the 23d of March, 1801.

A regiment devoted to the conspirators was that night on guard at the palace. The confederates who were to execute the plot, composed of the most distinguished men in the court and the army, met at the house of Prince Talitzin ostensibly for a supper. With wine and wa.s.sail they nerved themselves for the desperate deed. Just at midnight a select number entered the garden of the palace, by a private gate, and stealing silently along, beneath the trees, approached a portal which was left unbarred and undefended. One of the guardians of the palace led their steps and conducted them to an apartment adjoining that in which the tzar slept. A single hussar guarded the door. He was instantly struck down, and the conspirators in a body rushed into the royal chamber.

Paul sprang from his bed, and seizing his sword, endeavored to escape by another door than that through which the conspirators entered.

Foiled in this attempt, in the darkness, for all lights had been extinguished, he hid himself behind a movable screen. He was however soon seized, lights were brought in, and an act of abdication was read to him which he was required to sign. The intrepid tzar sprang at Zoubow, who was reading the act, and cuffed his ears. A struggle immediately ensued, and an officer's sash was pa.s.sed around the neck of the monarch, and after a desperate resistance he was strangled. The dress of one of the conspirators caused him to be mistaken, by the emperor, for his son Constantine, and the last words which the wretched sovereign uttered were, "And you too, Constantine."

The two grand dukes, Alexander and Constantine, were in the room below, and heard all the noise of the struggle in which their father was a.s.sa.s.sinated. It was with much difficulty that these young princes were induced to give their consent to the conspiracy, and they yielded only on condition that their father's life should be spared.

But self-defense required some vigorous action on their part, for Paul had threatened to send Alexander to Siberia, to immure Constantine in a convent, and the empress mother in a cloister.

The conspirators having accomplished the deed, descended into the apartment, where the grand dukes were awaiting their return. Alexander enquired eagerly if they had saved his father's life. The silence of the conspirators told the melancholy tale. The grief manifested by both Alexander and Constantine was apparently sincere and intense. In pa.s.sionate exclamations they gave vent to sorrow and remorse. But Pahlen, the governor, who had led the conspiracy, calm and collected, represented that the interests of the empire demanded a change of policy, that the death of Paul was a fatality, and that nothing now remained but for Alexander to a.s.sume the reins of government.

"I shall be accused," exclaimed Alexander bitterly, "of being the a.s.sa.s.sin of my father. You promised me not to attempt his life. I am the most unhappy man in the world."

The dead body of the emperor was placed upon a table, and an English physician, named Wylie, was called in to arrange the features so that it should appear that he had died of apoplexy. The judgment of the world has ever been and probably ever will be divided respecting the nature of Alexander's complicity in this murder. Many suppose that he could not have been ignorant that the death of his father was the inevitable end of the conspiracy, and that he accepted that result as a sad necessity. Certain it is that the conspirators were all rewarded richly, by being entrusted with the chief offices of the state; and the new monarch surrounded his throne with counselors whose hands were imbrued in his father's blood. A lady at St. Petersburg wrote to Fouche on the occasion of some ceremony which soon ensued,

"The young emperor walked preceded by the a.s.sa.s.sins of his grandfather, followed by those of his father, and surrounded by his own."

"Behold," said Fouche, "a woman who speaks Tacitus."

At St. Helena, O'Meara enquired of Napoleon if he thought that Paul had been insane. "Latterly," Napoleon replied, "I believe that he was.

At first he was strongly prejudiced against the Revolution, and every person concerned in it; but afterwards I had rendered him reasonable, and had changed his opinions altogether. If Paul had lived the English would have lost India before now. An agreement was made between Paul and myself to invade it. I furnished the plan. I was to have sent thirty thousand good troops. He was to send a similar number of the best Russian soldiers, and forty thousand Cossacks. I was to subscribe ten millions for the purchase of camels and other requisites for crossing the desert. The King of Prussia was to have been applied to by both of us to grant a pa.s.sage for my troops through his dominions, which would have been immediately granted. I had, at the same time, made a demand to the King of Persia for a pa.s.sage through his country, which would also have been granted, although the negotiations were not entirely concluded, but would have succeeded, as the Persians were desirous of profiting by it themselves."[28]

[Footnote 28: "Napoleon at St. Helena," p. 534.]

On another occasion, speaking upon this same subject, Napoleon said to Las Casas, "Paul had been promised Malta the moment it was taken possession of by the English. Malta reduced, the English ministers denied that they had promised it to him. It is confidently stated that, on the reading of this shameful falsehood, Paul felt so indignant that, seizing the dispatch in full council, he ran his sword through it, and ordered it to be sent back, in that condition, by way of answer. If this be a folly, it must be allowed that it is the folly of a n.o.ble soul. It is the indignation of virtue, which was incapable until then of suspecting such baseness.

"At the same time the English ministers, treating with us for the exchange of prisoners, refused to include the Russian prisoners taken in Holland, who were in the actual service and fought for the sole cause of the English. I had hit upon the bent of Paul's character. I seized time by the forelock. I collected these Russians. I clothed them and sent them back without any expense. From that instant that generous heart was altogether devoted to me, and, as I had no interest in opposition to Russia, and should never have spoken or acted but with justice, there is no doubt that I should have been enabled, for the future, to dispose of the cabinet of St. Petersburg. Our enemies were sensible of the danger, and it has been thought that this good-will of Paul proved fatal to him, It might well have been the case, for there are cabinets with whom nothing is sacred."

The death of Paul brought the enemies of France and the friends of England into power at St. Petersburg. The new emperor, the first day after his accession to the throne, issued a proclamation declaring his intention to follow in the footsteps of his grandmother, Catharine. He liberated all the English sailors whom Paul had taken from the ships laid under sequestration. All the decrees against the free importation of English merchandise were abolished; and the young emperor soon wrote, with his own hand, a letter to the King of England, expressing his earnest desire again to establish friendly relations between the courts of Russia and England. This declaration was received in London with shouts of joy.

Alexander was twenty-three years of age when he ascended the throne. A Swiss, by the name of Laharpe, a man of great intelligence and lofty spirit, and a republican in principle, had been for many years the prominent tutor of the young prince, and had obtained a great control over his mind. The instructions of Laharpe, who wished to make a Washington of his pupil, were much counteracted by the despotic lessons he had received from Catharine, and by the luxury, servility and corruption which crowded the Russian court. Naturally amiable, and possessed of by no means a strong character, the young monarch was easily moulded by the influences which surrounded him. He evidently commenced his reign with the best intentions, resolved, in every way, to promote the prosperity of his subjects. It is painful to observe the almost inevitable tendency of power to deprave the soul. History is filled with the records of those sovereigns who have fallen from virtue to vice.

The commencement of the reign of Alexander was hailed with general joy. All his first proclamations breathe the spirit of benevolence, of generosity, of the desire to ameliorate the condition of the oppressed millions. The ridiculous ordinances which Paul had issued were promptly abrogated. By a special edict all Russians were permitted to dress as they pleased, to wear twilled waistcoats and pantaloons, instead of short clothes, if they preferred them. They were permitted to wear round hats, to lead dogs with a leash, and to fasten their shoes with strings instead of buckles. A large number of exiles, whom Paul had sent to Siberia, were recalled, and many of the most burdensome requirements of etiquette, in the court, were annulled.

Though Alexander was an absolute monarch, who could issue any decree, subject to no restraint, he conferred upon the senate the power to revise these decrees, and to suggest any amendment; and he also created a legislature who were permitted to advise respecting any regulations which they might think promotive of the interests of the empire. The will of the emperor was, however, absolute and unchecked.

Still the appointment of these deliberative and advising bodies was considered an immense stride towards const.i.tutional freedom. The censorship of the press was greatly mitigated, and foreign books and journals were more freely introduced to the empire.

Two new ministries were established by Alexander, with extensive responsibilities--the Ministry of the Interior, and that of Public Instruction. All the officers of government were rendered accountable to the senate, and responsible to the sovereign. These elements of accountability and of responsibility had hitherto been almost unknown in Russia. Charitable inst.i.tutions were established, and schools of different grades, for the instruction of all cla.s.ses of the people.

Ambitious of rendering the Russian court as brilliant in all the appliances of luxury and art as any court in Europe, the emperor was indefatigable in the collection of paintings, statuary, medals and all artistic curiosities. The contrast thus became very marked between the semi-barbarism of the provinces and the enlightenment and voluptuousness of the capital.

It is worthy of remark that when Alexander ascended the throne there did not exist in all Russia, not even in St. Petersburg, a single book-store.[29] The Russian sovereigns had wished to take from civilization only that which would add to their despotic power.

Desiring to perpetuate the monopoly of authority, they sought to retain in their own hands the privileges of instruction. The impulse which Alexander had given to the cause of education spread throughout the empire, and the n.o.bles, in the distant provinces, interested themselves in establishing schools. These schools were, however, very exclusive in their character, admitting none but the children of the n.o.bles. The military schools which Catharine had established, with so much care, Alexander encouraged and supported with the utmost a.s.siduity.